


Photo Booth

by nhasablog



Category: Call Me By Your Name (2017), Call Me by Your Name - André Aciman
Genre: Boys Kissing, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, M/M, Photographs, Roma | Rome, Tickling
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-06
Updated: 2018-01-06
Packaged: 2019-03-01 06:01:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,820
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13288497
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nhasablog/pseuds/nhasablog
Summary: Elio and Oliver find a photo booth in Rome and take pictures so that they have something to hold onto forever.





	Photo Booth

**Author's Note:**

> In the book they went to Rome instead of Bergamo, for those of you who are confused!

Rome made them different. Maybe it wasn’t visible from the outside, but Elio could feel it. He felt it in the way Oliver bumped his shoulder into him on the street, sharing a smile as if they were in on a big secret that no one else in the entire city had a hunch about. He felt it in the way they observed people without being scared of being observed themselves. And he felt it in the way they kissed behind closed doors.

It was liberating. A freedom they’d only felt in the dead of the night when the world was asleep and they were too caught up to worry about waking it up.

And it scared him, because he knew he’d never feel it again.

“Nap. I need a nap.”

Elio looked over at Oliver who was standing in the middle of the street with his bags in his hands. Ready to leave in a few days. Ready to leave him behind.

Elio swallowed and walked to his side. “Let’s go check in and sleep for a bit then.”

“We’ll waste time.”

“Time is meant to be wasted.”

And with that they took off, entering their room giggling and exhausted twenty minutes later. Rather than napping they both rushed to the window, though it wasn’t much of a view. Only the side of another building. But it was different. Fascinating.

Elio turned to Oliver, both of them having calmed down a bit, and pressed his forehead to his chest. It was only a brief contact, but Oliver reached out when he’d pulled away, his fingers working their way over Elio’s upper body in light knocks, until Elio started fighting back and the fingers curled over sensitive spots. Elio doubled over, his laughter returning tenfold when Oliver didn’t stop.

And suddenly they were on the bed, Oliver’s fingers still going to town on his body, and Elio kicked his legs wildly in an attempt to flee the tickling. They were both laughing.

You’d think this could lead to something else, but once Oliver had mercy on him their bodies melted into the mattress, and even though Oliver had been the one to express his need to nap Elio felt himself drift off first. Happy, safe and content, but the sadness in his heart would never properly leave. Not like Oliver would leave.

* * *

 

Rome was hot in a different way from home, because here they didn’t have any rivers to cool down in. No peaches or apricots to pick from a tree to snack on. No trees to sit under or grass to roll around on. But Elio liked it. He could tell Oliver liked it too.

As the sun fell and the streets turned cooler, Oliver dragged Elio into a café for their first alcoholic drink of the evening, and they then stumbled out, still mostly sober but drunk on life. Elio’s sadness was overpowered by elation.

“See that?”

“What?”

“That!” Elio pointed at a photo booth hidden in a corner, forgotten in the night. “Let’s take photos. That way we can remember this forever.” As if Elio wouldn’t remember this forever anyway.

Oliver laughed as Elio pulled him along. “You got any coins?”

They shared the fee and stepped into the booth to take four photos. It wasn’t built for two, but due to Elio’s smaller frame they were able to squeeze in, bodies and hearts pressed together. Elio was suddenly happy for the curtain that hid them from the world.

“How do you wanna do this?” Oliver asked, doing that thing where he sat up straighter to pretend this situation wasn’t doing things to him. Elio liked that he could make him flustered, although never as flustered as Oliver made him.

“Let’s start with a normal one. Smiling and stuff.”

They clicked on the button and sat stiffly side by side, smiling brightly in the direction of the camera. Their heads weren’t touching.

“Next one could be silly,” Oliver suggested when the picture had been taken.

“Good idea.”

Grimacing and fighting the urge to look at each other, they took the second picture.

They didn’t say what they were going to do for the third one, but merely slipped their arms around each other, cheeks touching as they smiled. Just before the picture was taken, Oliver started wiggling his fingers over Elio’s ribs.

Elio stayed put until the flash had blinded them, and then started squirming in Oliver’s arms. “Stop!”

“Your smile looked too staged. I had to do something.”

“We’re not taking a picture right now!”

“No, but we will soon.”

“Oliver!”

“Elio!”

Elio laughed at the unbearable sensation, aware of how little space he had in this booth. Aware of how hard it was to escape. So he did the only thing he could think of. Pressed his lips to Oliver’s just as the last picture was taken.

They left the booth without a word, Oliver grabbing the pictures as they were printed out. He seemed worried.

Elio felt sad again.

“I didn’t know the picture would be taken in that exact moment,” he said, voice small. Oliver turned to look at him. “I didn’t mean to.”

“I know, don’t worry.”

“Don’t be mad.”

“I’m not.”

“You are.”

“No, it’s just-” Oliver looked at the photos, small and black and white. “The fact that there’s physical… evidence, I guess, scares me.”

“We could throw it away. Rip it up and throw it in a fire.”

“No. You keep it.”

“Why me?”

“Because you won’t get the urge to get rid of it when the world becomes too overwhelming.”

Elio pocketed the picture along with the one where Oliver had started tickling him. The intimate ones. The ones that scared him too but that he would never destroy.

Oliver took the other ones.

“I didn’t mean it,” Elio repeated as they stepped out on the street again. “I promise you I didn’t.”

“It was my fault.”

“You couldn’t have known.”

“Neither could you.” Oliver slipped his hand in Elio’s for a brief moment, and Elio felt calmer. “Let’s find something to drink.”

They both needed it.

* * *

 

Elio looked at the pictures as soon as Oliver had fallen asleep several hours later. Standing by the window so that the light from outside would illuminate them, he memorized every piece of them. All four of them. Especially the ones he would part with later.

In thirty years he would look at these photos and remember everything anew. How things could be so easy yet so difficult at the same time. How Oliver’s lips felt against his own, how his hand always sought him out, how hot that summer was. The best and worst summer of his life.

He could only hope Oliver would do the same.

“What are you doing?”

Elio hid the photos in his palm and turned around. “Nothing.”

Oliver shifted in the bed so that he could look at him more properly. “Aren’t you tired?”

“Exhausted.”

“So come back to bed.”

Elio obliged, slipping the photos on the nightstand before settling down beside him again. “The world looks different when the sun is only a couple of hours away from rising.”

Oliver hummed, not entirely awake. “I know. The world is quiet, as if holding its breath.”

“Are you?”

“What?”

“Holding your breath.”

Oliver reached out to caress Elio’s cheek. “No. You make me breathe freely.”

Still dizzy from the booze, Elio scooted closer to him with an involuntary laugh. “I never know what to reply when you say things like that.”

“You get shy. I like it. That’s why I do it.”

“My dad once told me you were shy.”

“Did he?”

“Uh huh.”

“Maybe I am. I mean, I can be. Though I reckon it comes off as elusive. Rude, almost.”

“Cold, I would say.”

“You would, huh?”

“That’s why I thought you didn’t like me, at first.”

“I know. I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay  _now_.”

“I don’t want to be cold to you. I never did.”

Elio kissed his chin, missing his mouth exactly. “It’s okay.”

“You keep saying that, and yet I know something is wrong.”

“You know what’s wrong. Don’t ruin this.”

Oliver didn’t reply, and Elio felt as if  _he_ was the one to have ruined it.

Typical.

Oliver stopped him when he tried to roll over. “Wait. Kiss me. Please.”

Elio didn’t need to be asked twice.

* * *

 

“You planning on carrying those with you everywhere?” Oliver asked when Elio took off his pants the next afternoon after a lunch in town and a quick visit to the university. The photos, all four of them, had fallen out of his pocket as he’d attempted to undress.

He flushed, feeling silly now. “I must’ve put them there and forgotten about it.”

“Uh huh.” Oliver took two steps and was standing before him. “What did we say about lying?”

“I’m not lying.”

“Lying  _again_. Maybe I should teach you a lesson.”

Elio jumped back when the offending hands started prodding at his belly. “Okay, okay, I’m sorry!”

“That’s better.”

“I genuinely hadn’t planned on taking them with me.”

“But?”

“But I caught sight of them just before we left and I couldn’t just leave them behind.”

“You do know no one’s gonna come in here, right?”

“You can never be too sure.”

Oliver relented and proceeded to undress as well. They were both sweaty and exhausted, and just like the previous day they were planning on napping until the heat wasn’t as unbearable to be in anymore. Elio picked up the photos from the floor and made a move to put them on the dresser, but Oliver held out his hands to grab them.

Elio watched him examine them. “I do admit-” he started, picking up the photo of them kissing and holding it up so that Elio could see. “-that this is a pretty great photo. A moment forever frozen in time.” He grinned and spidered his hand up Elio’s side. “My fingers forever frozen on your skin.”

Elio batted the hand off and prayed his blush wasn’t as visible as it felt. “How poetic.”

“Don’t tell me you haven’t thought it.”

“Maybe I have.”

“Knew it.”

Elio grabbed the photo of them making silly faces. “I like this one, because this is the only time you’ve ever looked unattractive, and it’s forever stuck like this.”

Oliver laughed and dumped the photos on the bed. “I’m not sure if I should kiss you or wrestle you for that.”

“How about both?”

The wrestling of course turned into Oliver forcing laughter out of Elio, but Elio didn’t mind. It only meant their kisses would be more passionate once they were done.

When Elio woke up to an empty bed and the sound of the shower running, he found two of the photos on the dresser beside him. The photo of them kissing and the one of them making faces.

He had to smile.

**Author's Note:**

> Here's my [tumblr](http://nhasablog.tumblr.com).


End file.
